Michelle “Meng” Nguyễn

🎉 Happy happy happy birthday to my boo Jeffie! 🎉 We went to one of his faves last night, complete with the restaurant’s staff shirt! He noticed them wearing it years ago and asked if they have em for sale…they don’t really advertise it but here’s your sign you can totally buy one at Big Lantern 😝 Luh you, @okayjeffrey ! My silly vegan, my khoai tây, my fart factory! Cheers to many more years of this nonsense together!!! (Vid & photo in slide 2-3 from @fannyburping , last slide from @bryan.yonki ❤️)

Congratulations @specklestudiosf on opening their new beautiful pottery shop! They’ve got memberships, classes, and workshops available so get in there yall! Thanks @hollycoley for having us paint your projecting sign, it was a quick but fun one! Designed by @altrstudio ✨

Got to get up and out there on a hot one yesterday for University Homes, a new supportive housing project in Berkeley! Can’t go wrong with some gothics we put together. Thanks Andy for having us and Victor for blessing us with the scaffolding setup ✨ Fun fact: the storefront on the most left was home to @goldenwestsignarts ’s sign shop back in the day! Wished we knew him then to see it in all its glory!

Westersen / A new brand from your friends at @icreature / Grand opening 3.16.26 with the help of San Francisco’s @signsbymeng / #stirsomedust

A quick (& very cold) one for @eatmamahuhu back in December. They’ve long had a sick Chinese neon sign and blade sign but they didn’t have their name on the façade — so we slapped their logotype right up front. Can’t miss it now! 🙂‍↕️✨

Happy to announce we had the absolute honor & pleasure to design @redboatfishsauce ’s first t-shirt! We definitely put the pressure on ourselves designing for fish sauce royalty and got caught up in several artist blocks — so thank you for your patience while we found our groove! It was an excuse to introduce another version of Cô Mía, our infamous “sugar cane lady” from Việt Nam. (We’ve mentioned her a million times but look her up if you are not familiar!) In this case, she is Cô Mắm 🐟✨ We ultimately love where we ended up and can’t wait to see people reppin’ these tees. They couldn’t decide what colorway so y’all lucked out with them choosing both! They will be launching em at @lunar.art.exhibition @artbuildscommunity tomorrow in San Jose, folks can get first dibs then! Otherwise, keep your eyes peeled for when they make em available online for purchase next week 👀 Shout out to @13gallons for their screen printing expertise and letting us bother them in their space! And big thanks again @redboatfishsauce for having us. What a treat it was to work with a such a fun family business. Sorry, we all Phamily now 🙂‍↕️❤️

Still working on lunar new year signs but this is what we’ll be doing! House full of scattered shoes is signs of a good party 🤭🧧 Here’s a fun commission for a friend of a friend!

So excited to share the tees (& onesie) we designed for @abacusrow for Lunar New Year! They are now for sale in-store and online via their site ✨ Chúc mừng năm mới means happy new year in Vietnamese while the Chinese characters mean certain victory / destined to win — since we like to wish each other good fortune for the new year and also because the animals & water goard are based on one of our favorite gambling games 🎲🎲🎲 Bầu cua cá cọp! These illustrations are taken right from the same board we painted on cardboard back in 2016 when we didn’t have a studio yet and still painted in the middle of our dining room / kitchen! Thanks again @abacusrow for letting us design fun merch, this definitely hits home hard 🥹❤️

✨🎨🖌️✨ A couple weeks ago, we had our friends Michelle “Meng” Nguyen [ @allthingsmeng ] and Jeffrey Larrimore [ @okayjeffrey ] in Sacramento to update the hand-painted hours and messaging on our front door. We’ve collected signs from Meng over the years for both the gallery and our home, and she was also part of our “For the Love of Sign” group exhibition in Spring 2025. It was especially cool to add her sign painting to our front windows, alongside sign work by George Anzaldo [ @kuyageorge ] and John Dozier [ @johndoziersigns ] painted on other parts of the glass. Meng is a Vietnamese American designer, illustrator, and sign painter born and raised in San Francisco. Jeff is a Jersey-born, multi-disciplinary designer who’s just as comfortable working on a computer as he is working with tools. Together, they offer brand, graphic, and retail design, with an emphasis on hand-painted signage and fabrication, working across an assortment of materials. They’re two of San Francisco’s best, and we were grateful to have them in Sacramento and to witness Michelle do her thing with a paintbrush on our front door. See more photos on timelessthrills.com ✨🎨🖌️✨ #timelessthrillsgallery #sacramentosbestkeptsecret

Another year, another window painting for @abacusrow ! It’s always such a treat coming back into this space while they prep for Lunar New Year installations and festivities! Thank you Christine & the crew for welcoming me with open arms every time and @omguac for providing these incredible illustrations, we’ve been screaming “horsie” for days 🤭🧧🎊🐎🧨✨ Keep posted on @abacusrow for their beautiful window displays and events coming up, they stay having fun activations & pop-ups! We have another surprise collab with them as well 😇❤️

Slacking on posting and also still bad at taking good photos but here are some of the signs I painted at the @tight.quarters holiday sale last month! Thank you friends and strangers that swung by to snag a sign / shirt, as well as the folks that got the leftovers online too! With your support, we were also able to donate proceeds from selected signs towards: @unitedwedream : a nonprofit immigrant advocacy organization - the largest immigrant youth-led network that advocates for the dignity & respect of all immigrants. @gazamutualaidsolidarity : an ad-hoc group of volunteers whose goal is to give direct mutual aid to help displaced & distressed families in Gaza. @dum_boc : a collective that supports & uplifting communities in need, often collaborating with creatives — in this case, the proceeds from my Vietnamese signs went towards relief from the flood in Central Viet Nam. I know it may not seem much $ but I’d like to think if we all continue to contribute a lil something, it adds up! Keep talking about Palestine, protect your immigrant neighbors, donate / spend / boycott where it counts ❤️

A new market is on the block and we got to build them an a-frame + paint their window! Thank you @foodfolksf for having us and welcome to the neighborhood! Stay tuned since they’ll be opening soon: 210 Clement Street 🎉 We were already stoked on their branding so painting came easy — courtesy of @rise_wise !✨ having their logo pop off the edge was a fun touch too! #alwayshandpaint #alwayshandpainted #signs #signage #aframesign